The James Scott Fountain was scanned by PMC pro bono for the Belle Isle Conservancy to assist in the historic restoration of the fountain. The scanning process took just 1 day in colored scans and another day to register. The fountain has been damaged, with the beautiful tiles being destroyed, cracks in the base, and stolen copper pipes that had been located under the fountain. The scanned data could be used to help restore the fountain to its prime and to get it back running as the crown of Belle Isle.
The fountain was designed by Cass Gilbert, opened in 1925 and is in Belle Isle Park, Detroit Michigan. The fountain is to honor the controversial James Scott. Gilbert left $200,000 to Detroit to build the fountain and statue of himself. The size of the fountain is 510 feet across and made of marble, with mouths of turtles, lions, Neptune figures and artistic horns that project water from the bottom of the fountain. The original tile border of the fountain is made of Pewabic Pottery.
PMC used Recap 360 to create a mesh of the fountain to create realistic renders in 3DS Max for historic restoration using point cloud data. Textures and water animations were added to the fountain and rendered to a short-animated clip, with water projecting from the turtles, lions, and horns, and a bright sunny surrounding.
